Last week, a new article, Prisons Rethink Isolation, Saving Money, Lives and Sanity, peeled back yet another layer from the world’s most prolific prison system: the practice of isolating a shockingly high number of those who are incarcerated in an attempt to maintain order in so-called super-max facilities.

As with mass incarceration itself, the numbers are disturbing and the results less-than-impressive. In fact, the article details Mississippi’s recent experience with closing a special isolation unit completely. Faced with an explosive situation at Unit 32 on the grounds of the infamous Parchman Farm, the authorities gambled by gradually moving the isolated inmates into the general population and to other facilities. The results were surprising.